Despite retiring from the iPhone and PS3 scene shortly before PS JailBreak first surfaced (amid rumors from one reseller that appear to point in his direction), today GeoHot has reappeared and shared dePKG which is a PlayStation 3 Firmware Package Decrypter!

Additionally, cory1492 states the following there: "CORE_OS_PACKAGE is NOT a .tar, it's a flash image - to extract it's contents you need to parse it out... a really shoddy/quickly made win32 built extractor for CORE_OS_PACKAGE is attached. Drag and drop your decrypted CORE_OS_PACKAGE onto the exe and it will extract the binaries inside (keep in mind most everything inside it is crypted, it contains the lv1/lv2 selfs and some spu modules and the like.) There shouldn't be anything in there that would prevent a very fast port to *nix (and many thanks go to graf_chokolo for partially documenting the structure on his hv reversing page at lan.st wiki.)

Also did a msys build of the depkg for windows which doesn't rely on external code, source included along with all the COPY notices that go with the aes implementation I used (also I'm running it on win7 x64 from the command line without issue, though it is a 32bit targeted build.)"

To quote from PSGroove: "The app is very useful for devs, that are planning to look into Sony's official firmware files. dePKG is a linux app, that will decrypt PKG files (not to be confused with PSN PKG files), that are within PS3UPDAT.PUP files.

This will allow devs to take a look at files such as CORE_OS_PACKAGE.pkg, from the convenience of their PC. Previously, the only way to take a look at these files, was via graf_chokolo's method, which utilized the PS3. Geohot's app is ready to be compiled and includes the necessary decryption keys."

Geohot Releases Firmware Decrypter Tool

From Psgroove: "The famous Geohot resurfaced today, to release a useful app called dePKG. The app is very useful for devs, that are planning to look into Sony's official firmware files. dePKG is a linux app, that will decrypt PKG files (not to be confused with PSN PKG files), that are within PS3UPDAT.PUP files.

This will allow devs to take a look at files such as CORE_OS_PACKAGE.pkg, from the convenience of their PC. Previously, the only way to take a look at these files, was via graf_chokolo's method, which utilized the PS3. Geohot's app is ready to be compiled and includes the necessary decryption keys."

That's pretty interesting... I wonder what this means exactly for GeoHot's work... and Fail0verflow team.

I hope its going to cause some stupid "you stole my work, I'll never release another piece of software my entire life"... but instead GeoHot worked independently from the information provided from the conference... or at the very worst GeoHot worked with them let them know before the release...

Otherwise, I really hate when the scene eats away at itself before real progress is made.